This article provides an ethnographic discourse analysis of an intercultural communication training course for tourism workers in Nepal, and investigates the communicative practices Nepali tour guides are socialized into as part of the development of their professional competence. Their work competence and skills include learning some tactics of self-presentation to create a certain kind of persona so that the guides can enhance positive affect in tourists, often in a language and communication style that is thought to be appreciated by tourists. The course largely reproduces market-oriented communicative practices in order to effectively commodify tourism as an object of material exchange.